The 2010 Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case, split 5-4 on essentially party lines, opened the door for unlimited and unregulated spending by corporations and unions on political advertisements. The five most conservative justices who made up the majority overturned parts of the McCain-Feingold Act (I miss that McCain) on First Amendment grounds.

The ruling was widely panned by Democrats, including President Obama, who feared an avalanche of moneyed interests emptying their formidable coffers to fight any attempt at regulation. Corporations and other rich individuals could bankroll independent expenditure-only political action committees, or Super PACs, and finance massive, sustained, and coordinated media blitzes to strongly advocate for or against certain issues or candidates.

ExxonMobil made $30 billion in net income last year. An Exxon Super PAC could afford to produce a Sarah Palin-hosted “Drill Baby Drill” infomercial and run it all night, with a few breaks for Ron Popeil. Citizens also seems to open the door for foreign nationals and entities to get involved in American political campaigns.  As much as we like to influence other countries’ government choices, we don’t want that happening to us.  American elections are for Americans.

Citizens United (the organization, not the case) was a conservative group who released an anti-Hillary Clinton movie, the fallout from which eventually made it to the Supreme Court. Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich both have Super PACs unofficially supporting them that have been throwing rocks at the other candidate. Mitt’s Super PAC knocked Newt down in Iowa with a media barrage, which was followed by Newt’s Super PAC getting a $5 million infusion from Greater Israel advocate and casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson and broadcasting a 28-minute film attacking Mitt’s business career. 

Up until this past weekend, we had only seen Republican Super PACs. Newt’s “King of Bain” movie was brutal although significantly dishonest, but he delivered with this one. Newt has since taken his desire to go to Lincoln-Douglas style debates literally by revisiting the arguments of 1858, but that’s for another column. Then came Stephen Colbert.

Stephen Colbert’s Super PAC, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, has started airing advertisements on South Carolina television and online over the last few days. To comply with campaign-finance laws, Colbert had to hand off control to Jon Stewart. The ads are typical Colbert/Stewart satire, and not exactly high-budget, but they are funny and much more memorable than the typical black-and-white photo sequence/flying newspaper quotes out of context format a lot of political campaigns seem to love.

A lot of competent and talented people work in political and commercial advertising, but let’s be honest, every commercial director wants to be Martin Scorsese and not vice versa. Karl Rove is a brilliant strategist and messenger, not a filmmaker. They may cling to guns and religion, but conservatives totally melt when elite liberal screenwriters and producers tug at their heartstrings. Hollywood understands Real America a lot better than Real America understands Real America.

If Jon Stewart and his team could do ads this good without spending tons of money and without a political organization that is even running for anything, what would Steven Spielberg and friends be capable of with a few months, $100 million and the added motivation of a presidential campaign? Successful film directors and producers are successful for a reason: They can cast terrible actors, singers who want to be actors, models who shouldn’t be actors, etc. in movies and actually make them convincing and relatable to the audience. They could be Barack Obama and the Democrats’ secret weapon.

Citizens United and the conservative justices on the Supreme Court essentially gave Hollywood the ability to load up its war chest and use it to make movies against Republicans. 

President Obama is going to have the richest “unaffiliated” Super PAC yet and, while maybe not as energized as they were four years ago, a powerful group of entertainment industry supporters who are excited to help him get reelected. While Obama and his official campaign team can’t coordinate with his Super PAC, there’s nothing stopping a coalition of elite Hollywood directors and producers from offering to assume creative control of that Super PAC’s TV, radio and internet advertisements. 

The near-certain nominee, Willard Mitt Romney, is a much better villain than war hero John McCain. Some of Willard’s recent zingers are indeed reminiscent of Randolph and Mortimer Duke, or maybe Scrooge McDuck. His doubling-down on criticism of his business career being primarily motivated by envy is a lot like LeBron James’ (paraphrased) “At the end of the day I’m rich and my haters have personal problems” statement after vanishing from Game 6 of the NBA Finals last year. Ohio is a swing state.

I would imagine talented filmmakers would not find it hard to write Mitt Romney into a most-hated television bad guy.

I, like Colbert, Barack Obama and many Americans, believe Citizens United was a dangerous decision and anything that increases the influence of the moneyed elite in our political system makes it less democratic. The fact that there are extremely wealthy donors on the left to balance out the Koch Brothers, energy companies and Sheldon of Arabia doesn’t make the system any more just. 

That being said, Democrat-affiliated groups can only play by the rules that John Roberts laid out. If (when) Republicans strike first, they have to respond in kind or greater. The best way to fight these Republican Super PAC money bombs is to ensure the Democratic ones are bigger and more dramatic. 

Who does that better than Hollywood?

Reach Staff Columnist Matt Pressberg here.